Bloomberg Business Week Writers Now Banned From Calling Subjects ‘Sphincter Tightening’ Without Attribution

Now that Business Weekis owned by Bloomberg LP, the wire service’s boss man is able to push around the magazine’s writers. In a year-end memo to staffers, old and new, he points fingers at sourcing without attribution in the magazine. “Bloomberg News, since its inception, uses anonymous sourcing reluctantly only when the benefit of reporting something that is actionable outweighs the lack of definitive attribution,” he observed in the memo, which was obtained by Gawker. “We shun anonymous quotations and assertions that are negative because readers have no proof that they are more credible than hearsay.” He went on to list some examples from the magazine that “don’t meet these standards,” like the time when writer Michelle Conlin quoted someone anonymously saying that meeting with former Target CEO Bob Ulrich was “a sphincter-tightening experience.” It’s an understandable policy, but it really seems like a loss for news color, doesn’tit?